What is Craft Beer Week? Well, it’s whatever you decide to make out of it. American Craft Beer week (#ACBW) is a time to celebrate the craft brewers and breweries throughout our country. From the smallest nano-breweries to the pioneers of craft brewing to the home brewers, each individual that creates and enjoys these unique beverages supports the movement of craft brewing that has allowed this amazingly diverse (and delicious) brewing culture to take hold in America. To me, ACBW is a time to try a new brew, check out some of the numerous educational or social events and pay tribute to all those who dedicate their time to providing us with amazing beer.

For some more information on ACBW, craftbeer.com has a whole host of information, not only on the week itself, but on events throughout the country. To check out the events at CraftBeer.com head over here. The Brewers Association have also posted a great inspirational video here on youtube.com.

Here are just a couple events that are happening over the week. Some may be associated with ACBW, but some are being held just because Colorado breweries are awesome.

Odell Brewing Company
May 14, 2012 – May 19, 2012
Odell will be hosting numerous events at the tap room, and be participating in others throughout the week. On Monday the 14th they will be tapping the Fort Collins Collusion Ale, and will tap a new beer each day! Check our Odell's website for a list of happenings.

Tipsy’s Liquor World – First Annual Taste of Tipsy’s
May 19, 2012 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Price: $25
A beer event for the family? Tipsy’s is hosting its first “Taste of Tipsy’s” which will include numerous activities and over 70 breweries. 70! That’s quite a few breweries in one place, and for a 7 hour event, it’s plenty of time to meander and check them all out. The best part, the event is to help raise funds for Dakota Ridge Athletic Foundation! You can get more information and buy tickets from Tipsy's here.

Bristol Brewing Company
May 19, 2012 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
A local brewery in the Colorado Springs area for 18 years, Bristol will have live music by John Stone playing from 3 to 5. They will also have a Lab cask ale tapped starting at 12:00. Check our their site here.

You can also check out our list of breweries to find some local breweries in your area and visit their website (or give them a call) to see what is happening in your area. Many breweries have weekly events, and during ACBW, your sure to be able to find something happening in your area.

Hops

The hops are coming along well, all over 6  inches and a few over a foot tall now. That Nugget you see above decided to shoot up all of a sudden and surpassed everything else. For weeks it sat as a little nub just barely poking out of the soil and I thought it was dead. Two weeks ago I did a REALLY good watering and it shot up and shows no signs of stopping.

Lesson 1 – Water

I had my first death a couple days ago and I believe my problem was improper watering. The soil I have most of these girls in is not a  well draining soil and thus the water doesn’t absorb and get to the roots efficiently. I put a gallon of water on one plant and 10 min later dug 1/2 inch in it was completely dry. What I’ve found I need to do is conduct a thorough watering, giving the plants half the water and let it absorb,  then come back about 45 min later or so and soak again. A lot of places recommend watering only when really needed and then realllly watering to ensure all parts of the root system are hit. Since I’ve started watering more effectively the plants seem to be really responding. The newer plants (Chinook and Willamette) with the sand added into the soil are doing tremendously better because the improved drainage allows the water to seep through better and provide a good oxygenated environment for them.

Hydroponics

The experiment with hydroponics has been a bit trying. The pepper I posted a few weeks ago has lost most of it’s leaves and I believe that was due to nutrient burn. When I purchased the nutrients I used the recommended strength on the back not realizing that was the strength for soil plants which was roughly 3.5 times the amount recommended for hydro. Woops!

After talking to the guy at my local hydro-store I decided to switch from organic nutrients to chemical (CNS-17 Grow) and I now have a half strength solution to help this little guy recover from the torture I put it through. I’m not particularly attached to him, especially as ugly as he is, but I don’t want to put a hop plant in there until I feel comfortable I can keep it alive.

Soil

My original mixture was 2 parts organic miracle grow to one part cow manure compost. I had some left over and mixed it 2-1 with sand to increase the drainage. I'm note sure if it was the rhizomes or the soil or both but the Chinook took off and has surpassed the Nugget which was planted weeks before.

Sun

I think a lack of sun is starting to take it's toll on my little girls  they popped out quick and rose to about 3 inches and have failed to grow much more. I may be looking into buying a fluorescent system with bulbs in the 6500k spectrum for optimum growth.

As they get larger I plan to train two shoots per plant up the trellis. The remaining shoots I'm still debating on. I have read you can cook and eat them like asparagus which I will certainly try if I get enough, if only to say that I did. A few though I want to try propagating and creating new plants from the cuttings. Depending on my situation at the time I may give some plants to friends and family (assuming they live) and some I would like to try growing in a hydroponic system.

I have begun work on my hydroponic system which I'll post about in more depth later. For cost effectiveness and ease I decided on deep water culture with in a refitted 5 gallon brew bucket. I added an aquarium pump and purchased some organic nutrients from Nick's Garden Center. The entire setup plus nutrients  would have ran me roughly $40.00 had I purchased all the stuff from scratch but I had a lot of it lying around.

Right now I'm testing it with a green pepper plant. If that little guy survives I'll try the hops in it later. Here are a few people who have done hydroponic hops before. Hopefully I can learn a few things from them and try a few new things myself.

Aeroponic Hops

Ebb and Flow Hops

Nothing happened.

So…. this time I decided to plan a bit better. Sadly I am limited to potted plants being in an apartment. I am not going to let a little thing like that stop me. Every week or so I will try to post an update on the progress of the hops so others can see and hopefully learn from my attempts to grow hops in containers from an apartment. Here is what I did.

The Rhizomes

I purchased my hops from Adventures in Homebrewing for only $5.99 a piece. Their website expected delivery sometime the first week of April, and I received them around the end of March. I was pleasantly surprised. However, I hadn’t yet prepared at all (again!) I quickly placed them in the fridge and hopped online to do a little research.

 

OH NO! My Columbus rhizomes have mold! I notified AIH of this and they quickly sent me a reply stating they would replace both rhizomes from the contaminated batch. I haven’t done a whole lot of my homebrew shopping online but this place seems to be pretty quick and have great customer service.

 

 

 

The Containers

I read the BYO article “Growing Hops in Containers” by Chris Colby where he details his successes of container hop growing. He recommended at minimum a 20 inch pot  because of the extensive root structure of the Humulus Lupulus (hop) plant. Since I’m trying to limit cost, I looked around and found a deal at a local nursery (Nick’s Garden Center) that sells used pots of the appropriate size for only $5! They are big, black, plastic pots that  you commonly see trees planted in. I figure if a tree can grow alright in there, then the hops should be okay.

The Soil

Now that I had my rhizomes and containers, I now needed to get some dirt! Adventures in Homebrewing linked a great resource for hops growing, the Hop Growing Manual, which gives great information for both the prospective commercial grower and the home/recreational grower. It noted that hops are forgiving of sub-optimal growing media. However, it is recommended to have soil around 6.0 – 6.2 pH, well draining , and lack excessive nitrogen.

I decided on the organic Miracle Grow Garden soil mixed with some cow manure compost in about a 3:1 ratio.

Planting

Looking at all the homebrew forums, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on the best way to plant the rhizomes. Some people suggested vertically with the buds pointing up and others suggested horizontally and both seem to work fine. I went with horizontal.

eBrew posted an article suggesting soaking the rhizome in warm water with powdered root hormone to make them pick up faster. I didn’t try this with my first set of rhizomes, but I think I will when the new shipment comes in.

The Future

I am still working on my ideas for a trellis that gives the most efficient use of space in our cramped apartment balcony. I’ll send another post out once I complete it. I’m thinking a zig-zag pattern similar to HopsInPots. Also, I’m thinking of having it be just one large trellis that has a stake sticking into each pot. I'm hoping this will give more support against the high Colorado winds.

I will post more as these hop adventures continue. Maybe next week I’ll try putting hops in a Topsy Turvy?

Origins

The stout originated with the porter in London in the early to mid 1700’s. The term “stout” was used as an adjective meaning strong. Stout was used to describe any style of beer being a strong beer. It wasn’t until the early 1800’s that the term stout for the beer we know today became a popular term commercially.

Early versions were made prior to the introduction of pale malt which was invented in 1817 which would have given it a more brown than black look. Due to taxation on grains, a lot of brewers used burnt sugar or burnt molasses instead of brown or patent malt (when it became available). Once patent malt became popular the malt bill for the stout changed from mostly brown malt to mostly light malt and small percentage of patent malt. The patent gives the stout the burnt, roasty character typified by the stout.

For some 150 years the stout/porter reigned as the king of beers. However, eventually the pale ale and then the pilzner took over. Today many varieties of the stout exist: Dry Stout, Sweet Stout, Oatmeal Stout, Foreign Extra Stout, American Stout, Russian Imperial Stout with variations only limited by the imagination of the brewers.

Drinks

Because it is St. Patty’s Day I figured we should finish this post off with a few drinks you may or may not have had before to spice up your stout.

The following information was taken from Wikipedia:

Stormy Pumpkin: (aka "Headless Horseman") Guiness poured over Shipyard Brewing Company Pumpkin Head Ale

Heaven & Hell: Dogfish Head Brewery World Wide Stout poured over 120 Minute IPA

Belgian Brunette: Guinness poured over Stella Artois

Black Castle: Guinness poured over Newcastle Brown Ale

Priest Collar: A priest collar is made in the same way as a black and tan except using a cider instead of a pale ale or pale lager. Another name for this combination is called a Snakebite in some parts of California, the midwest and southern Canada (elsewhere, Snakebite (shandy) includes blackcurrent).

Black and Blue: (aka "Dark Side of the Moon" or "Eclipse" ) Guinness layered over Blue Moon (beer) in place of pale ale or pale lager. For those who are in New Orleans, if you ask for a "Black and Blue" expect Guinness over Pabst Blue Ribbon not Blue Moon (beer).

Black and Brown: Guinness poured over Newcastle Brown Ale.

Black Velvet: A head of Guinness poured over cider ale, usually Strongbow Cider. Referred to as a Crown Float (or Crown Floater) in the Ottawa, Canada area.

Black Satin: Guinness Draught mixed with Guinness Black Lager. If Guinness Stout is used instead, this may be be somewhat insensitively refereed to as a Rwandan Genocide.

October Tan: Guinness poured atop Samuel Adams Octoberfest creating a well-bodied seasonal mix.

Black and Trash: Guinness poured on top of the American Budweiser lager.

Pennsylvania Tan: Yuengling and Guinness

Special: Smithwicks with a Guinness Head

Black Cherry: Sam Adams Cherry Wheat with Guinness

Black Raspberry: Guinness poured over Kawartha Lakes Brewery Raspberry Wheat

Black and Indy: Pabst Blue Ribbon with Guinness

Wilmington Delight: King Cobra and Pabst and a little Fortified Wine

Black and Gold: Murphy's Irish Stout poured over Hacker-Pschorr Hefe Weisse, although Beamish or Guinness have been used

Black and White: Guinness poured over Great White

Black Czech: Guinness poured over Pilsner Urquell

Black Irish: Guinness poured over Estrella Damm (or Voll Damm)

Black Death: Guinness poured over Rogue Dead Guy Ale

Black Cow: Guinness poured over Spotted Cow (New Glarus Brewery, WI)

Dark Shark; Guinness poured over Dogfish Head

Outback Black; Guinness poured over Fosters

Black-e-tan; Guinness poured over Summit Extra Pale Ale (also referred to as The Black Lung)

D4 Special; Guinness poured over Heineken

Blaxican; Guinness poured over Modelo

Black and Tan Smooth; Guinness poured over Kilkenny

Banana Split; Young's Double Chocolate Stout poured over Well's Banana Beer

Golden Granny; Stella Artois poured over Woodchuck Granny Smith Cider

Brown and Bitter; Newcastle Brown Ale and Bass

911 Slow; Guinness poured over Warsteiner with a splash of sloe gin

Black Barrel; Guinness poured over Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale

Black Magic; Guinness poured over Magic Hat #9

Scarecrow; Guinness poured over Fall Seasonal Hoptober By New Belgium

Black Belt; Guinness poured over Grain Belt Premium

Dark Side of the Moon; Guinness poured over Blue Moon

Ghetto Black And Tan; Guinness poured over Pabst Blue Ribbon

Black and Blueberry; Guinness poured over Wachusett Blueberry Ale

Sweet Black and Tan; Sweetheart stout over various Light ales. ( Mostly Scotland )

Black and Red: Guinness poured over Killians Irish Red

Black 8-Ball/Black 8; Guinness poured over Olde English 800 malt liquor. The hip hop group Tha Alkaholiks/Tha Liks make mention of this black and tan variation on some of their albums, to make a Black 8 40oz, drink the Olde English 40 oz down to the top of the label,and fill back up with Guinness.

Black Mick; Guinness poured over Mickey's Malt Liquor or Mickey's Ice Ale.

Black and Brogans; Murphy's Irish Stout poured over Żywiec (Poland)

Irish Heinie; Guinness poured over Heineken.

BlackBerry; Leinenkugel's Creamy Dark mixed with Leinenkugel's Berry Weis (WI).

Vermont Tan; Long Trail Pale Ale mixed with Guinness.

Desktop

Free

1. QBrew -  QBrew is an open-source recipe formulator along the lines of BeerSmith and Promash. It has less functionality but has most of what you would want and has the ability to export to BeerXML, PDF, .txt or .html.
2. Brewer’s Friend – Alright, this isn’t an app to download but it is a great resource with a lot of calculators and ability to create recipes on this site.
3. Brew Target – Another open-source program built for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Supports BeerXML.

Paid

1. BeerSmith– This one is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. This is an all in one program that has anything you can possibly want from a home brewing program. There are calculators and recipe formulation. Also, you can keep your inventory with price and cost and create shopping lists within the program. It has an internal database of hops, grain and yeast with all of their stats (IBU, SRM, etc). You can download it for a free 21 day trial to see how you like it.
   • Price – $27.95
2. ProMash– Here is another program that is easy to use and has loads of functionality. It doesn’t look as “new age” as BeerSmith2 but it is still really nice. It is quick to put in recipes, but sometimes it is hard to navigate. You can download a trial version of this as well which is the full version but only allows you to save 3 recipes and 9 brew sessions.
   • Price – $24.95
3. BeerAlchemy – Available for Mac. Suggested by bifftradwell on reddit who noted it has “…a much better interface than BeerSmith, and instructions are better-formatted as well.” Available as a demo version for full unrestricted 30 day use.
• Price – $29.95

Android

Free

Note -There are a lot of calculator apps so I won’t list them all but I’ll try to list a few of the better rated ones.

1. Brewzor Calc – Has a ton of different calculations. I’m not sure about the color estimate but it’s been noted that it’s nearly impossible to denote an SRM as an RGB.
2. Brewzor Pro – This is the beta, so it might not be free forever. While it is pick it up in the Market and save all your recipes to your phone, generate a shopping list and keep notes all at your finger tips.
3. HBC Homebrew Tools – Another recipe saving tool and has a built in hops timer.
4. BrewR – Also saves recipes. A little lower tech than Brewzor and HBC but still does the job.

Paid

1. Mr. Malty– I use Mr. Malty all the time but I’m not sure why anyone would buy an app for it when you can get the same service online for free. If you do though you’ll be getting a good service I’m sure.
   1. Price – $4.95
2. Mash ~ For All-Grain Brewing-  Strike calculator for all-grain brewing.
   • Price- $0.99
3. Brewdroid- Brew droid is a beer recipe formulation program and home brew support app.
   • Price – $2.00

We here at Brew-Colorado love deals, especially when it comes to home brewing, so naturally we keep an eye on sites like Living Social and Groupon. Groupon currently has kits for over 50% off from Midwest Supplies, just check them out here: Groupon Home Brewing Kit! If you are either looking for a start up kit or planning on expanding your current equipment, a cheap kit (with ingredients too boot!) is always useful.

Keep checking back and subscribe to our RSS feed to find other deals and happenings! Until next time, happy brewing!

Malt extract is the reduced and refined sugars extracted from barley grain and provided in either a dry (DME – Dry Malt Extract) or liquid (LME –Liquid Malt Extract) form.  Many varieties  exist ranging from light, amber or dark to Belgian and Bavarian styles. You may pay  more for extract than equivalent grain but you save hours of  preparing and processing the grains to get the sugars out.

Below is the shopping list. Most of it is just pick up and go, but if you’ve never purchased specialty grains it could be confusing. Your local homebrew store (LHBS) should have big tubs or dispensers of specialty grains, an electronic scale to measure it out and a bucket or bag to collect it into. After you measure the grains out you will use a grain mill to crush the grains. Don’t worry about keeping them separated, they’ll all be going into the brew pot together.

Shopping List

1. 6 lb. Light Malt Syrup
2. 1 lb. Amber DME
3. 1 lb. Crystal 40
4. 1 lb. Crystal 60
5. 1 oz. Chinook
6. 2 oz. Cascade
7. Irish Moss (optional)
8. WLP001 California/Wyeas1056 American Ale
9. 1 medium grain bag (cheese sock)

Preparation

Cleaning and Sanitizing

If this is your first brew your equipment is likely looking clean and new but you should still give it a nice cleaning prior to sanitization. You don’t know what kinds of contaminants your equipment could have come in contact with during shipping and storage. Get your PBW/Oxyclean/OneStep and prepare a solution according to the container. I like to put about 2.5 gallons of cleaning solution in my fermenter, clean that, then dump the solution into a plugged sinkor a Rubbermaid tub to clean  the rest of the equipment. Most of the cleaners will do a pretty good job just soaking given enough time but you should help it out by scrubbing with something non-abrasive like a washcloth or sponge. It is possible to scratch plastics and give little places for bacteria to grow that are difficult to get clean.

Sanitize anything that will come in contact with your beer, paying particular attention to the fermenter. No beer will be completely free of contaminants but if you give your yeast the cleanest, healthiest environment possible you will have a better chance of getting great beer.

Ingredients

1.) Get some hot water in a bowl, sink or whatever you have to set the LME in. This will help warm it up so it will come out easier during the boil.

2.) While the LME is warming up, measure out (or eyeball) half of the Cascade and place the two halves in bowls or bags ready for the boil.

3.) If using Irish Moss, add 1tsp Irish Moss to a small bowl or shot glass. Add a tablespoon of water and allow to rehydrate.

4.) Pour the crushed grains into a grain bag and tie the bag closed.

5.) Take yeast out of fridge and let it warm up on your counter.

Brewing

1. Add 1 1/2 gallons of water to the brewing pot. Place the grain bag into the water and  steep over medium heat (the water should be steamy but not boiling).  During this time you should be using your thermometer to ensure the water never exceeds 170ºF. After 30 minutes remove the pot from the heat. Remove and discard the grain bag.

Note: At this point some people use extra near boiling water to rinse the grains and get the most out of them. This can be over done as excessive rinsing releases tannins into the beer giving it a grainy harsher taste than typically desired.

2. Fill the pot near to the top with tap water allowing room to ensure there will be no boil over. If you have a large enough pot bring it to about 6 gallons to allow for boil off and to end at 5 gallons. If your pot cannot hold a full 6 gallon boil that is okay. You’ll need to boil an amount of water to complement the wort and add up to 5 gallons in the fermenter. For example, I have a 4 gallon stock pot which will hold 3 gallons comfortably leaving room for the hot break to prevent boil overs. Prior to brewing I will boil 2 gallons of water and pour this into a sanitized 6.5 gallon fermenter. I’ll allow it to cool while I brew. If I’ve already sanitized a stopper and airlock I’ll use that, otherwise I’ll use a new Ziploc bag to cover the opening and prevent dust and bacteria from entering the carboy.

3. Bring the water to a boil, remove from heat, add LME (stirring continuously) and return the pot to the heat. Bring the contents of the pot, now called wort, to a boil.

4. You will now boil the wort for 60 min. At the beginning of the boil add the 1 oz. of Chinook.

5. At 30 min out add 1 oz. of Cascade.

6. At 15 min out add Irish Moss and put your wort chiller in (if you have one) at this time.

7. At 5 min out add the final 1 oz. of Cascade.

8. At the end of the boil you will need to cool the wort as quickly as possible down to between 65ºF and 75ºF. If you have a wort chiller you will have an easier quicker time of it. If you don’t, fill your sink about a quarter of the way with ice and water and place your kettle in it. Stirring will increase the rate of cooling but be sure anything that comes in contact with the wort at this time is properly sanitized and try not to aerate it.

9. Pour the chilled wort into your fermenter. Your total wort volume should now be 5 gallons.

10. Take a sample of the wort for a gravity reading. You can use a sanitized turkey baster, hose (don’t suck it out you’ll risk contamination), a sanitized cup (if you have a bucket and can dip into it).

11. Pitch the yeast! The vials can build up a little pressure so open it slowly to lose the least yeast possible.

12. Aerate! Put your top on the bucket or place a sanitized piece of aluminum foil on top of the carboy and shake vigorously for a few minutes. Your yeast need as much oxygen at this point as possible for a solid healthy fermentation.

13. Install your airlock or blowoff tube and put your fermenter into a cool dark place. Higher fermentation temperatures will increase the rate of fermentation but will also give off esters that can be unwanted and unpleasant. Also, light can damage your beer so I like to put a shirt over my carboy to block out as much as possible. In about two weeks you will have 5 gallons of beer just waiting to be bottled. Come back and check out our bottling guide when you’re ready!

Eat before you go. This may sound like common sense to some people, or complete blasphemy to others, but I find it to be a great idea. This will help you to taste as many beers as possible instead of just pounding down as many one ounce cups as you can. If your just going for some fun and would like to pound those ouncers, I have never been to a beer festival where someone was not able to drink to their hearts content. Besides, I don't know anyone who likes paying $5.00 for a hot dog.

Pretzel Necklace. Bring one, they are a must have. I have had friends that don't want to wear one because they think it will make them look dorky. Those this is true, but without fail they always asked for some of my pretzels before the end of the night. A good pretzel necklace is invaluable, unless you don't like pretzels, then I would suggest using mini donuts or something along those lines. When I make them I use normal sized pretzels, as these seem to be the easiest to eat and they keep the necklace light. Since you ate before you left, these will be a great snack throughout the event. Note that brew fests do allow pretzel necklaces (at least all the ones I've been too) even though they don't allow you to take in other food.

Can on a necklace. Though not necessary I have found this to be a fun and sometimes useful accessory. Just take your favorite can of beer, remove the top and string! This new accessory may provide a great place for your tasting cup (depending on the beer festival), cigarettes, cell phone, lighter or other small item.

Wet hand wipes. These may or may not be helpful depending on the venue of the festival. Most festivals provide cup rinse stations and full bathrooms for clean up. Throughout the day or night beer will, unfortunately, spill and your tasting cup will become sticky. Since the rinse stations and bathrooms can be hard to find or difficult to get to just to clean your cup, the hand wipes are a great backup. Sometimes a quick wipe can take care of a little detail that will make a world of difference.

I hope you enjoy these simple and easy ideas and let us know if you have any fun ideas for the festival! I will see you at the next festival; and please remember, don't drink and drive.

Beer #1: American Brown - OG 1.060 FG 1.009

Beer #2: Small Brown - OG 1.036 FG 1.009

I used an American Brown recipe and drained ~6.25 gal for my first beer, and started that boiling outside in my 7.5 gal keggle. Then I added another 3 gal of water at 155º F  and let that sit for about 10 min. I figured the enzymatic activity is pretty much complete, all I wanted was to get any remaining sugars out of there. Those 3 gallons went into my old 16qt brew kettle and we started that on the boil. I had some hops left over from a previous batch and the current one from splitting the 1oz packages so I decided to blend those into the beer. The Brewing Network did an episode on brewing small beers and recommended using a slightly higher hop profile to fill out a small beer and make it taste... bigger. So that's what we're doing here.

I wanted to try reusing yeast that I took from the yeast bed of the last batch of the last Amber I brewed so I decided I might as well try it on this batch. I figure any beer I get from the second runnings is gravy and if my yeast didn't work or was contaminated it wasn't a total loss. The day before brew day I took the collected yeast from the fridge and made a starter with it. I went with 1 quart of water and 3 oz of DME with a 1/4 tsp of yeast nutrient. It didn't take off as quickly as the starter for the main batch which used a fresh smack pack of WYeast 1056 American Ale I, but I did notice slight activity after a few hours which gave me some hope.

At boil the small beer was running a bit low at 1.020 so I added 1 cup DME to bump up the OG a little. I wanted it to be "small" but not too small.  Looking back I could add another pound or two of grain to the mash to bump up the second beer a bit. I might add the entire 3 gallons to the sparge, drain into main batch until at appropriate level and then drain the remainder into the second batch. Should be a bit higher that way. The main thing is I don't want to affect the main beer.

Tasting

In the end both beers turned out pretty good but you'd never guess they used the same mash. The main beer is a nice nutty, caramelly brown while the small beer is more of a pale ale or light IPA. I had to wait a while while cooling the main batch, pitching the yeast and cleaning the cooling area before getting to cooling the small batch and this caused the small to boil, with the hops, for an extra 20-30 min or so.

It was only an extra 18 beers or so, but it was a good experiment and proved to me I was able to re-pitch my yeast effectively with no noticeable contamination. I've done this on many other beers since and always gotten good results. A nice benefit is that the small batches give me an outlet for trying new yeast harvesting techniques without being afraid of ruining a full 5 gallon batch. Anyone else tried doing multiple batches with one mash? What was your experience like?

BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program)

From the BJCP, "The purpose of the Beer Judge Certification Program is to promote beer literacy and the appreciation of real beer, and to recognize beer tasting and evaluation skills." What this means to someone going through the certification programs is that you will lean about what is behind beer. The program focuses on honing individual talent in perceiving the different aspects of beer: appearance, aroma, flavor and mouth-feel. With a strong emphasis on being able to identify and match beers to style guidelines, the BJCP certification is a fairly scientific approach to beer.

For someone who is brewing beer, either at home or on a commercial level, the BJCP is a great way to look at and learn why your brews taste the way they do. There are numerous advantages to understanding the subtle flavors of a particular beverage, but the main advantage of becoming certified is through organized competitions. Many competitions are based on the guidelines set by the BJCP, with most of the larger ones being sanctioned, so a solid knowledge of what the judges are looking for is invaluable. For additional information head over to www.bjcp.org.

Cicerone

The main focus of the Cicerone certification program is to educate individuals on serving beer. This is very similar to a sommelier for wine. You will learn about beer (focused on "fine beer") and how it pairs with food, while gaining a deeper knowledge of how to serve beer. The serving portion of the certification program has some overlap with the BJCP certification, but deals with serving to individuals and maximize the pleasure a customer will receive from each particular beer or style of beer. For those who depend on serving beer, a Cicerone is invaluable since it is able to quantify your progress, as opposed to a self proclaimed 'beer expert.'

If you are going to be serving, or even selling beer, the Cicerone certification is very helpful due to the ability to suggest beer based on particular tastes or needed flavors to compliment foods. Unlike the BJCP, one should achieve a higher knowledge base of flavor pairings. This certification focuses on acquired knowledge, and not so much on an individuals ability to identify and distinguish between flavor profiles while knowing the root cause of these flavors. For more information check out www.cicerone.org.

Final Thoughts

This is just a quick look at two of the many resources our there for beer enthusiasts. By no means did I cover all the advantages or blind spots of these two organizations, just a quick review so you could get an idea of what is out there. There are many home brew clubs and other resources out there that can provide you with loads of information. For a list of home brewing stores in your area head over to our home brewing page. Take a look at our event page to find upcoming beer fests, which are a great place to meet enthusiasts and learn about the rich craft brewing industry here in Colorado.

Recipe
For this batch James took a standard Brewer’s Best™ kit and added some malts and hops to bring it to 7 gallons of approximately the same original gravity. The following list contains the total ingredients when all was said and done.

Steeping Grains
1 lb Caramel 80L (160º for 25 minutes)

Malts
3.5 lbs Amber DME
3.3 lbs Amber LME
1 lb Amber Belgian candy sugar syrup (this is a new product that he wanted to try out)

Hops
1 oz. Fuggle (pellets, 60 min)
1.25 oz BC Golden (pellets, 60 min)
0.5 oz Willamette (pellets, 5 min)

Yeasts
Wyeast 1056 American Ale
Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale

Technical stuff
OG – 1.051
FG - TBD
IBU - 27
SRM - 17
ABV - TBD

Brewing
As I said before, this was a standard brew. The only real differences coming right at the end when we split the batches. If you would like some additional information please check out our posts on how to home brew. In the recipe section of this post I put in the details if you would like to try this brew, and below I am just going to cover the “abnormalities.”

The brew pot that James uses only hold about 7 gal. if you fill it to the brim. Therefore, we weren’t able to get a full boil with the batch, and had to do about 5.5 gal. in the pot and add water after the fact to fill the carboys to the 3.5 gal. target mark. This is a typical practice for home brewers who brew on their stove with a 20 quart pot, but worth mentioning since it will change some calculations, such as IBUs.

Splitting a batch of beer between multiple fermentation vessels isn’t a new thing to us, but through experience and some research, we found that the procedure of splitting can drastically change the outcome of each batch. To ensure an even split (and minimize the amount of work) we just picked up a standard barbed 3/8” ‘T’ from the hardware store and used this to split the wort while siphoning. As long as you are diligent and make sure the siphon tubes after the split don’t contain air bubbles, this method works perfectly.

Thoughts
The yeasts that James chose for this batch were based on using standard yeasts that will do well with the batch we brewed. He decided to go with two Wyeast packages and just save the dry yeast package that came in the kit for another day. We attempted to pick some yeasts that will ferment similarly at a similar temperature, and hopefully have subtle but distinct differences once fermentation is complete. Since were were using two different yeast packages in 3.5 gal batches, there was no need to use yeast starters.

I always love brewing with friends, and with new experiments or brewing methods I get very excited. Though I don’t have much thoughts about this brew at the moment, once we bottle and compare the different outcomes of the yeasts, I will be back with another post detailing what we thought. For now, let us know if you have any unique experiments or if there is something you would like to see try!

Dusten

A Staff Seargent in the USAF, Dusten has been home brewing since 2007. With a wealth of knowledge, and a particular interest in the science behind brewing, Dusten provides an in depth analysis of why brewing works the way it does. Married since 2009, Dusten and his wife currently reside in Aurora, CO with their new puppy Gypsy.

Alex

Currently an Engineering student at UCD Alex has been home brewing since 2008. Always searching for the perfect session beers, Alex enjoys kicking back with a brew and letting the brewing process determine what comes out of it. He currently lives in Denver, CO.

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Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1 packet of dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2/3 cup honey
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 1/2 cups bread flour
• 1 cup spent grain

Style Information

Grains & Extracts

Hops

Adjuncts

Yeasts

Mash Steps

Fermentation

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